WhaBoom: The Case Against Lucas -The Bachelorette Bonus

I initially was going to include this in our Week 2 recap, but after thinking about it, it felt like something that deserved it’s own post. We have had contestants play the villain every season. Lucas’ brand of villain is different though. He’s all about his brand and essentially has nothing to talk about with Rachel aside from how much “whaboom” is inside him.

Having him on the show hurts the (wait for it) integrity of the program. This doesn’t need to be high art or anything, but let’s not give people who are too lazy to create real value a platform to sell hastily developed catchphrase t-shirts. There is a long line of past contestant that were “villains”, but each of them added to the overall show by bringing some cheesy drama and totally expected twists. Maybe they weren’t the best fits for the show in its purest form, but their drama, at least, related to the program and/or the other contestants.

Stop trying to make “WhaBoom” happen!

To expose Lucas for definitely not being here for the #rightreasons, I took one for the team and went down his social media rabbit hole. Here’s what I found:

First, after about 8 seconds of digging, I found Lucas’ self promotion of his, now well publicized, stint on the hit WE Television reality program, “Ex Isle”, last year. In case you were unaware, it’s required context for what else I found..

Lucas promoting his last series

Next, what do I stumble across, but a sponsored post from Mr WhaBoom himself. Oh, here we go. This is surprising because I’ve never seen a current contestant promote their posts (especially this early). If you stick around for even a few weeks, you develop a sizable social media following that can be parlayed into brand partnerships and all the protein shakes you can drink. This tells me two things. 1. He doesn’t stick around that long and 2. He’s selling something. Promoting your post is a pretty expensive proposition without an income stream to offset the costs. OK, Lucas, I’ll bite. I’m not super eager to click his ad, but…

OF COURSE HE HAS AN ONLINE STORE. Lucas is definitely the type of guy who silk screens his face on t-shirts with a self-bestowed catchphrase and then tries to sell them to Bachelor Nation. He’s selling them for $15 a pop, so this also tells me he printed a shit load of them to get a decent unit cost and he’s sitting on piles of boxes filled with “WhaBoom” t-shirts. No one exploits Bachelor Nation on my watch, sir.

Lucas’ website. Of course.

My take on Mr. WhaBoom

Let me give you some free advice, Lucas. Being annoying is an effective way for a brand to breakthrough and be memorable. It is, however, not a sustainable way to develop a brand that people want to interact with, let alone spend their hard earned money on. Also, maybe don’t pick the bro-iest persona and catchphrase to promote on a television series whose target audience is women.

I respect the hustle, don’t get me wrong, but it’s just so far off target and so obvious. It’s OK to be entrepreneurial, but do it honestly – not under the guise of trying to find love. I think we all are coming into this show with clear eyes that some folks are not totally here for the #rightreasons. The difference is they are at least going to play along and not make every shot of them be about their “thing”. Mr. WhaBoom, your execution is terrible and being an obnoxious villain isn’t going to launch your apparel empire. Try harder.

Where do we go from here?

Thankfully, this guy is definitely getting sent home sooner rather than later – but I fear we may not be rid of him. Instagram stories from him as well as other past Bachelor contestants in Vegas this past weekend hint at a return, possibly in “Paradise”. We are clearly being punished for something.